Congress erupts at Trump's shutdown mass firings: "This is a disaster"

"Regardless of whether federal employees have been working without pay or have been furloughed, their work is incredibly important to serving the public,"

"The mass firings Russ Vought and the Trump Administration announced today are cruel, illegal, and yet another attack on our economy,"

"They're callously choosing to hurt people-the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos,"

Office of Management and Budget chief Russ Vought posted "The RIFs have begun" on X, indicating that reductions in force have started. The administration has been threatening to permanently fire federal workers to pressure Democrats to reopen the government. Firings are reported across many agencies, including Homeland Security, Commerce, Treasury, Education, Health and Human Services, and Energy. Members of Congress criticized the move as cruel, illegal, harmful to the economy and a disaster for constituencies with large federal workforces. Democrats noted that many of the firings could be reversed through legal action and warned of mismanagement and dysfunction from top-down directives.

Read at Axios